Pirates Flag FC wins 2015 Jingle Bowl

The Pirates Flag Football Club (PFFC) ruled the 2015 Jingle Bowl flag football tournament held at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman track oval in Quezon City on Saturday.

The PFFC won via forfeiture after the University of the Philippines Flag Football Club (UPFFC) Guerillas conceded because of lack of players during the championship game.

The Guerillas finished second while the Juggernauts I Club finished third overall after blasting the De La Salle University (DLSU) Tyrants in the battle-for-bronze match.

“The Jingle Bowl 2015 was a success. Despite having very cold weather last weekend, all the teams enjoyed the games. The season’s spirit was with the community that day and it was nice to see laughter and smiles all around both weekends,” Philippine Flag Football League President Paul Le told The Manila Times.

PFFC’s Cole Piscano and Joanne Lu were named Most Valuable Players for male and female, respectively, while Julian Buban of UPFFC (male) and Marion De Luna of UPFFC (female) got the Best in Offense awards.

Best in Defense awards were conferred to Joshua Gunnacao of UPFFC (male) and Mei Manalo of Ateneo Blue Raiders (female).

Juggernauts I bagged the Team Sportmanship recognition while the Tyrants were the Most Improved Team.

The competing teams this year also include Ateneo de Manila University Blue Raiders, Pirates FFC, Tiger University and three teams from Juggernauts Flag Football Club.

Flag football, often called tackle football, is a modified version of American Football where the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball barrier. The game is a less violent tackling that is usually associated with American Football.

Jingle history
Jingle Bowl started in 2005 when Le received an email from certain Paul Kenneth Ang inquiring about flag football. The two ended up organizing a tournament.
The game format and details of the tournament were handed by Le to Ang and they only had two months to prepare for the game.

Both were actually wondering what to call the tournament. Since the flag football tournament is scheduled every December, they came up with the term Jingle Bowl.

American football championships are called “bowls” because of the stadiums played back in 1902 looked like a bowl.

At first, the tournament had seven teams including Team M, Doggs, Griffins, Falcons, Arrowheads, Phoenix, and the champion that time was the Young Guns which was first held at Xavier School in San Juan.

Since Le revived the league after PFFL’s inactive years, the Jingle Bowl is now the PFFL’s year ending tournament.

Le said 2016 will be filled with much-exciting flag football games.

“Next year will be better for the PFFL. With the entry of seven more colleges our mandate of going grassroots is being fulfilled. The 1st College Club Championships on two different formats plus the regular tournaments of the league will fill up 2016 with more fun and competitive tournaments for the community,” Le said.